SYDNEY - More than a century after a prospector spotted a valuable metal glinting in the desert, a remote Australian mining town is in the grip of another gold rush.
This time the treasure is a lost $A1.5 million ($1.81 million) lottery ticket, and the hunt is centredon a rubbish tip.
They called it the luck of the Irish when Paddy Hannan discovered gold in 1893 in the shadow of Mt Charlotte and put the town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia on the map.
That's a phrase one of his countrymen would have been cursing last week as he searched in vain for a valuable slip of paper at the town's Yarri Rd dump.
The Irish gold miner - who has not been identified - believes he held the winning Oz Lotto "Slikpik" brief before accidentally throwing it out with his rubbish.
When news spread that it may have ended up among thousands of tonnes of household waste at the local dump, scavengers swooped, hoping to cash in on his misfortune.
One Sydney man is reported to have offered to search the tip for a $A100,000 share of the jackpot.
Up to 50 people are believed to be claiming to have bought the ticket from Tower News before the December 18 draw.
Most attention has centred on the apparently unlucky Irishman who is said to have returned now to his job working at gold mines 300km northeast of Kalgoorlie.
City council officials said people who had turned up with spades wanting to search the tip had been turned away.
The Irishman would be allowed to continue if he wanted, although his efforts would be futile.
According to experts, he has more chance of winning the lottery again than ever finding the ticket.
"We have 350 to 400 tonnes of rubbish going out each day and we are looking at something that has been out there the better part of a month," said a council spokesman.
"Basically, you would be looking through compost."
